The Federal Drive with Terry Gerton

A rule going back several years, lets Defense Department contracting officers treat stuff from so-called non-traditional vendors --known as NCDs -- as commercial. Just this month, the Defense Pricing and Contracting unit issued a memo underscoring that authority. For why this matters, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with Haynes & Boone procurement attorney Dan Ramish.

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The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) says it is working to strengthen its internal financial control practices. That is after a Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit found FHFA’s financial statements miscalculated the agencies obligations under the Federal Employee Compensation Act. And the way it happened might offer a cautionary tale for other small agencies. Anne Sit-Williams is a director for financial management and assurance at GAO. She talked about the findings with Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu.

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The more nations launch satellites into space, the more crowded the orbit layers become, especially in the burgeoning low-earth orbit. NASA has a Space Environment Sustainability Advisory Board to help guide policy for an area of space that is starting to look like the Beltway at rush hour. The board has defined the problem in terms of five challenges. For more, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin talked with the associate administrator for NASA's office of Technology, Policy and Strategy, Charity Weeden.

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On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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The Office of the National Cyber Director is working with agencies to accelerate efforts to “clean up” insecure internet routing techniques that can lead to cybersecurity risks.

White House National Cyber Director Harry Coker expects that more than half of all advertised federal IP space will adopt more secure routing agreements by the end of this year. The goal is to get to Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), which provides security for internet routing to help prevent traffic from being hijacked by hackers.

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After a governmentwide update to the Pathways Program, the Department of Health and Human Services is already looking at how to start implementing the new flexibilities into its program.

But many of those flexibilities, which the Office of Personnel Management finalized in April, are optional, rather than required. That means it depends on an agency’s resources to make them a reality, and in many cases, requires agencies to think creatively.

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a request for proposals that industry finds puzzling. CMS terminated an existing call center contractor after two years. That award had taken three years to establish. CMS is requiring re-compete contractors to have labor harmony agreements. Federal Drive Host Tom Temin looks into this puzzle with the President and CEO of the Professional Services Council, David Berteau.

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After more than 20 years at the Office of Management and Budget, the man interviewed in-studio by Federal Drive Host Tom Temin, jumped from the frying pan into the fire. He recently took the job of chief operating officer and acting chief of staff at the Social Security Administration. Among federal agencies, SSA ranks dead last in a recent survey of best places to work. Temin talks with Dustin Brown about what he plans to do first.

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On today's episode of the Federal Drive with Tom Temin:

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Congress is on recess this week, as the summer season gets underway. Yet on the House side, appropriations work is well on the way. And you can expect a floor vote on an equally important bill as soon as next week. For an update, Federal Drive Host Tom Temin spoke with Bloomberg Government Deputy News Director Loren Duggan.

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